The present disclosure relates to a zoom lens and an imaging apparatus. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a zoom lens which is used in a video camera, a digital still camera or the like, thereby realizing miniaturization, high image quality promotion, and high magnification promotion, and an imaging apparatus using the same.
In recent years, a digital camera using an imaging element such as a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) or a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) instead of using a silver salt film has rapidly come to be widely used.
In such a manner, along with the popularization of the digital camera, in particular, the needs of users for low cost promotion, miniaturization, and high magnification promotion of a lens integrated digital camera have been increased. In addition, the number of pixels in the imaging element has a tendency to be increased year by year. Also, the needs of the users for high image quality promotion have also been increased.
For the purpose of promoting the low cost and high image quality described above, an optical system is proposed in which three lens group construction having a negative refractive power, a positive refractive power, and a positive refractive power (negative, positive and positive) are adopted, and plastic lenses are disposed in the three lens groups, respectively. Such optical systems, for example, are described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2000-267009, 2008-233871 and 2009-251568, (hereinafter referred to as Patent Documents 1, 2 and 3, respectively).